IT firms poaching talents to meet 5G service demand

As Indian information technology companies gear up for 5G technology to provide backup support to the telecom service providers (TSPs), some of the mid-tier firms are in poaching mode and even looking at talented workers from smaller companies.

According to sources, even large IT companies such as Tata Consultancy Services is looking for hiring such talents and poaching from smaller firms. Tata Sons arm Panatone Finvest Limited has already acquired Tejas Networks, the telecom gears maker, in July this year.

The company signed a definite agreement to pick a 43.3 per cent stake in Tejas Networks for about ₹1,850 crore.

Sources in the know said Oracle India is also poaching employees from other smaller companies to fill the skilled workers required for 5G technology support.

“I am bleeding…some of best employees are being approached by bigger companies at double/ triple the salaries they are getting here. I am finding it tough to stop them here,” Chief Executive Officer at a data analytics company told BusinessLine requesting anonymity.

Questions sent to both Oracle and TCS remained unanswered.

As per reports, companies like Cisco Systems are investing $5 billion to fund 5G projects globally, including India and the company has posted over 30 per cent 5G jobs in India since January 2020.

Key challenge
According to HCL Technologies, hiring resources with 5G-ready skills is challenging because this technology is new, the demand for these skills currently exceeds its supply, and the technology is gaining momentum/ adoption at a fast pace.

“At HCL, we are addressing the 5G skill requirement through multiple routes. Along with hiring external talent, we are driving 5G skills through a business objective-driven academy dedicated to imparting 5G-specific training on niche skills to address our customers’ business needs,” Vijay Anand Guntur, Corporate Vice-President of Engineering and R&D Services, HCL Technologies, told BusinessLine.

“Our investments in 5G specific labs, products and solutions ensure we attract and retain the right talent to drive the futuristic requirements of our customers,” he added.

Another official at HCL Technologies said the company has started a unique network architectonic which is driven by distributed network and a three-way convergence, consisting of technology OEMs, carrier partner ecosystem, and the power of the cloud.

“This architectural posture is accelerating Telco Cloud, MEC (multi-access edge cloud), and Edge Cloud in a distributed network architecture and driving 5G momentum in the market. HCL is closely working with large tier-1 5G OEMs and hyperscalers to redefine networking stipulations for service providers and enterprises through 5G,” Kalyan Kumar, Chief Technology Officer, HCL Technologies, said.

New technologies
Such initiatives are expected to open new technology paradigms and drive futuristic 5G use case market requirements, he added.

Vivek Agarwal, President – BFSI, HLS and Corporate Development at Tech Mahindra, said the company is using ‘all possible avenues’ for bringing right skillset to service the capital expenditure cycle, which is driven by 5G.

“We also have very large pool of people in reskilling and skill development for people on the emerging 5G technology as an area,” he said. On asked specifically hiring from telecom sector, he said that people come from both telecom and IT companies who have domain expertise to fulfil the needs and demand in the 5G ecosystem. The Outreach